The Broken (The Lost Words: Volume 2) (93 page)

“I am Lady Lisa, the empress-mother, King Sergei,” she said, her voice steady and clear.

Sergei stared at her, marveled at her courage. But he would not expect any less from Adam’s widow. His mind reeled. The tears welled, making his sight blurred. He blinked them away, blinked away the crushing pain that tried to smother him. He wanted to revel in dark black wrath; he wanted hatred to course through his veins like poison. But instead, there was just emptiness, numbing and dull and gray.

“My son is dead,” he whispered.

The woman never took her eyes off him, never wavered. “Yes, he is.”
But what you do now will determine how much his death is worth
, that stare proclaimed.

“Where is your daughter, Lady Lisa?” he tried.

The woman was tougher than steel, he noted. Steel was honey next to her. “I truly mourn your loss, King Sergei. Do not ask questions that deserve no answer.”

He understood. He understood all too well.

Carefully, Sergei sheathed the sword, his heart empty. His dukes exhaled. Murdering unarmed noble hostages would have been a huge disgrace. Especially if they could use them for political leverage. And without Amalia in their hands, they would soon need a lot of it.

The king slumped, exhausted. He just wanted to crumple and cry. But then, he imagined Sasha watching him, judging him and sneering in contempt. He imagined Pyotr standing here, and his scribe writing the history as it was being made, feelings and doubts be damned.

This conquest was far from being done. He could not let pain lead him. He could not.

“Take the prince-heir away,” the king commanded, trying to keep the brittle edge from his voice. “Gently. Summon my sister. And begin the search for Empress Amalia. She must not escape.”

Yuri coughed. “My liege, refugees have been fleeing the city for hours now. There’s no way we can know if she’s fled already.” There was an almost desperate plea in his voice.

“You will find her,” Sergei promised.

But even he didn’t believe his own pledge. Later, there would be time for mourning and tears and regret. He would find the outcrop of sanity and cling to it and justify his choices. For now, he had to forge a future for Parus.

“Take Lady Lisa somewhere safe. Make sure she has everything she needs,” he ordered.

“Thank you, King Sergei,” the empress-mother said graciously.

He looked at Theo. True to his word, the man had not helped open the city gates. “Tell me about this city,” he told his new chief adviser.

CHAPTER 59

W
ar was
nothing
like training, James thought morbidly. Whoever told you that training would make you into a soldier was a bloody liar. What training did was hone your instincts to react reasonably well to a threat. In other words, rather than shit your pants, you raised your sword and braced for the impact. And then you shat your pants.

Seventeen engagements, eight thousand men lost. That was the toll of his campaign against the pirates. More than a third of his force lay dead in the nameless fields and villages of central and southern Caytor, covered in snow, waiting for spring to claim them. Some had succumbed to enemy arrows and spears. Others had died due to foolishness and pride, accidents, frost, bad food, filthy water, and naivety. That last factor seemed to account for most of the dead.

Thirty percent dead was a dreadful number. But that was the price you paid when you assembled an army of amateurs and tried to make up for a few decades of stupor in just a few weeks, in the middle of winter, against an enemy that could not retreat.

Even though he was aided by the best fighters in Caytor, Xavier’s and Hector’s ability to rally green troops from a hundred different units was limited. James realized that even the brilliant head of the academy had his vast experience molded from skirmishes and city fights, not all-out field engagements between big armies. And the mercenary warlord was more talented in brigandry and raids rather than leading fives—legions—into frontal assaults.

James wondered what his dad had felt in the First and Second Battles of Bakler Hills.

The maiden battle had heightened the total lack of discipline and the vast difference in combat styles and tactics employed by various regiments. No one had really known what to do, hunting lessons and the ability to spot tracks on the forest floor and a hundred mock fights notwithstanding. And then, the sheer arrogance of men trained to be private guards, who had never had to face a wall of desperate enemies, all seasoned veterans of a thousand raids, well practiced in killing, faces covered in tattoos, throats screaming defiance as they rushed to their death. Fighting thieves was one thing. Going to war was another.

The second battle was marginally better. By the fourth, most men would hold their line when commanded. The amount of soiled underpants dropped in half. Slowly, gradually, order became second nature for the survivors. They learned to cope. They adapted to the brutal reality surrounding them. The charm of a gallant march was replaced by grim determination and deep abdominal fear that everyone came to respect as their best friend. No one boasted their invincibility anymore. No one was afraid to admit they were scared.

James’s head swirled with history lessons, the Leprous War, the Autumn Skirmish, so many others. He recalled reading on the heyday of war between Eracia and Caytor, slowly waning to the occasional border skirmishes, fading to insults and jeers. He wondered what battles had looked like to men who had practiced war every day. And what they had looked like for someone like Adam, or his own mother, when the Feorans had stormed into the Safe Territories.

When Master Hector ordered a man who had refused to grease his ears and cheeks whipped for disobedience, no one argued. They all knew what happened when you pulled an icy helmet off your head after a long day.

War brought out the best in them, but also the worst. They caught a soldier collecting black fingers and toes, hacked off from the vain and the stupid, selling as them as lucky charms to those with all their digits still intact. They hanged a cook for selling bread to refugees. Xavier exposed a dozen traitors and had them burned alive. Terror and the weather worked their cruel bite on the sculpture of innocence, exposing the raw innards.

Whores were smuggled into the camp. Free riders showed up, like vermin, merging into his force, bolstering his strength. And in many of the abandoned villages, they found groups of mercenaries, waiting for the marching convoys, offering their services.

The tenth engagement saw them free the town of Berom. A large body of pirates had sheltered there, waiting for the storms to clear before moving on. They had taken all of the women from their homes and held them captive in the mayor’s hall, using them for labor and pleasure. They had also killed most of the male population to cut down on the food rations.

James had let Xavier lead the attack on the town. The warlord had shown remarkable resourcefulness in planning the mission. The former guard had hired half a hundred prostitutes and then sent them as a bait to flush the pirates out of the town. The Oth Danesh had been wary at first, but then, they had ridden forth to try to capture this new prize. The battle had been remarkably short. It took them far more time to torture the surviving enemy soldiers than to restore some sort of sanity to Berom.

James still believed he would have to kill Xavier one day, but that day was still far off. He needed him still.

Every day was an ordeal. From dusk to dawn, James was busy coordinating, commanding, listening to reports, writing messages, deliberating the order of battle with his officers. He wondered how his father might have presided over his own councils of war. Rob was there to fill in the blanks, telling him stories no one else knew.

Day after day, James grew harder, more experienced. Soon, there was no room left for frustration and hesitation, both being replaced by cold efficiency. He made sure to maintain a constant communication line with Pain Daye, no matter how many riders it took. He sent scouts far and wide, trying to rally local lords and villages to his cause. He never took advantage of the Caytorean people. He might be an Athesian emperor in the making, but Caytor was his wife’s realm. His realm, too, perhaps? It was a tricky thought.

Food supplies, fodder for the horses, injuries, deaths, medicines, unit banners, the information streamed like a wild river, and he rode on top of it, battling the icy, violent currents. His large and colorful force had lost weight and color, becoming a single deadly, efficient mass. He could see the birth of an army. It was a messy, bloody process, but the child coming forth was a ruthless killing beast.

He was his father’s son. And his mother’s, too.

The elements had battered them at first, but they had endured it. And now, the snow and wind were no longer just enemies. Oh, they had to respect them, but if they paid proper homage, they could make use of the weather to their advantage. The pirates were less familiar with the tricks and traps of the Caytorean winter. They hailed from a warmer climate. They didn’t quite know how to cope.

The war forged brilliant minds among the young and cocky officers, weeded out cowards and fools. The ranks changed so quickly it was almost impossible to know the names of the unit leaders. But after every engagement, the few who would return were that much wiser, that much more skilled in the art of battle. It wasn’t about grace or amazing swordsmanship or the gleam of one’s armor suit. It was about brutal efficiency and taking risks.

Soon, James had his own legions and regiments, led by his colonels, with official names and banners, no longer just silly romance in the hands of young, inexperienced men who had never tasted blood and shit, often mixed together. They were often undermanned, but it made no difference. Men took pride in their colors and mascots. Songs were made. Without their families and the warm comfort of rich manor houses, the familiarity of death and suffering bred kinship among soldiers, transcending nation and class. No one bothered to remember their emperor was an Eracian fighting in the name of his father’s realm.

With an army structure in place, James had more flexibility. He could hazard several fronts at once; he could lead multipronged attacks, drive wedges into enemy encampments, or strike like a hammer and anvil, leaving no survivors. And he never left any. What would be the point of that?

Soldiers learned new skills, and they were nothing like hunting parties on the training grounds. James was amazed to discover what you could do with salt and pig lard. He never thought to reuse his piss, but that he did. Men became experts at salvaging gear and weapons, repairing things or saving resources for when they were needed. Looking back, James laughed at the silly parade that had left Pain Daye for war. So much pomp, so much fat, so much noise.

But he was glad for this war. It was teaching him valuable lessons in leadership and loss and the grave responsibility that came with them. When he saw his friends die, he hesitated, but then, there was the next battle the day after, and he had to order some more friends to their deaths, all over again. It never got easy, but he learned to appreciate the enormity of sacrifice. Battles were no longer just lead figures arranged on a map, waiting to crash into one another. He took it personally. He cared. He made sure he didn’t waste his troops for nothing.

Today was going to be their eighteenth battle with the pirates, the biggest one so far.

James sat on his destrier, listening to the report. Three and a half thousand Oth Danesh warriors, trapped in the valley before them. They had fled the Parusites only to find themselves face-to-face with the vengeful Caytoreans.

James had four thousand men with him, the rest driving around the enemy force, trying to encircle them and keep them from retreating. They could not let this group escape. By all accounts, this was the last large presence of pirates inside Caytor. Once they were destroyed, there would be only small pockets of isolated bands and defectors left to purge.

Warlord Xavier dismissed the weary scout. Like James and all the rest, his face was smeared in grease mixed with ashes. It didn’t make them pretty, but it protected them from the chill. Most people would underestimate the late-winter dawns, but not when you had to spend the night awake or ride to your death the next morning. They all wore woolen caps and thick leather gloves. No one wanted to lose a nose or a finger to carelessness.

“We should probably send our cavalry archers north to that hill there,” Rob said, pointing. “They can try to draw the pirates into breaking formation. Then, the horse shock can strike into their left flank covered by infantry and crossbowmen on the right.”

James sighed, his breath misting. “What if they don’t budge?”

Rob shrugged. His horse nickered nervously. The animals sensed the tension. “We wait.”

James waved his hand. “No more waiting. We end this today.”

All around, the world was waking. The wet snow was steaming; the horses’ bodies were steaming. The vapor from thousands of mouths was rising like a mist. Filthy, weary men waited for the command to ride down into the valley and destroy the pirates.